Entertainment

4 Frighteningly Fun Zombie iPhone Games

Here at Mashable we love a good zombie. The grosser, the better. We imagine a few of you out there feel the same way, so we've scoured the App Store to find the best zombie-themed casual games available.

Zombies have proven to be fantastic fodder for casual games — there's no remorse for killing them as they're already undead, and they're generally slow enough that you have a chance to implode a few heads before they get too close to have your brains for dinner.

Just in time for Halloween, here are four games (that aren't the superb Plants vs. Zombies) that make killing the undead super-fun for the whole family. Check them out and let us know your favorites in the comments below.

1. Zombieville USA

"Excellent practice for when the REAL zombie apocalypse occurs."

The story line is paper-thin, but when a game is as colorful and fun as this, the plot doesn't really matter. Basically, there's been some kind of zombie invasion and you're just strolling the streets, picking up cash and ammo and wasting some undead along the way.

There's a great "how to play" walk-through in both the "Lite" version (which is basically the first level, with a few control limitations) and the full version that will get you started without too much fuss.

A side-scroller reminiscent of classic arcade games with cartoon graphics, Zombieville USA lets you choose to play as one of a number of (clichéd) characters. Each character has his own strengths and weaknesses, so you'll find your favorite as you try them out.

Controls are simple: Use the arrows to move, hit buttons (or the screen) to attack. The mechanics are easy — head through the levels entering houses to collect ammo or cash as you go. As you collect cash you can buy up to 15 alternative weapons (as well as med packs) to slay zombies more effectively at the level breaks.

While simple in principle, you can soon get chomped on by zombies if you haven't killed them, and it's often hard to free yourself from their grip, at which point you'll find yourself back at the start screen. We recommend beginning the game on "easy" until you get the hang of it.

The gameplay can be a little repetitive until you get to later levels, but when you do, you'll be rewarded with different types of zombies to blow away, vehicles to transport you in your zombie fighting, and even the odd survivor that will be your combat buddy — until they get killed.

Gore Rating:

This is cartoon-violence only, but there is lots of blood; the zombies' heads explode as they "die" and some great sound effects (blood-curdling screams, a grandiose pipe organ and some really gory fleshy sounds) add to the atmosphere.

2. Zombie Wonderland

"More action! More madness! More zombie guts to clean up!"

"Keep the zombies at bay in this frantic action game." You control Chuck, an ordinary guy with a shotgun trying to help his neighbors in Niceville defend their properties from invading zombie masses. In addition to killing zombies, it's your job to clean up any green zombie goo that gets spilled in the various gameplay locations.

If you thrive under pressure, this game is for you. With impressive three-dimensional, top-down gameplay (so you can swipe the screen to spin the perspective — great for spotting zombies at a distance) your job is basically to point-and-shoot at all zombies to get Chuck racing over to the nearest window to blow their rotten brains out.

Meanwhile, you need to be thinking about cleaning up that zombie goo with a mop and bucket, boarding up windows, trying not to get your limbs chewed off, and prioritizing the dispatch of "flamies," "grannies" and "meanies" over the more typical "greenies."

This is a highly addictive, fast and furious game, which means you really need to stay on top of all your tasks to do well and progress to the different areas in "story" play, or stay alive as long as you can in "survival" mode.

Gore Rating:

Unless you count small cartoon zombies exploding into piles of green goo, this isn't really that gory. And the sound effects are more fun than frightening. Nothing to scare the horses here, but plenty of fast, fun gameplay.

3. Zombie Smash

"Smash them until they're un-undead with creative zombie demolition."

It's classic castle defense. You are defending a house from various undead types, but this is an extremely knowing, self-aware, funny "survival comedy" zombie game that uses different methods of gameplay to smash zombies into bits.

We can't praise this game enough, especially considering its $0.99 price tag (Update: It's now $1.99). There are various ways to play: campaign mode, in which you try and defend the house for 31 nights, and "endless siege," which functions as a survival mode.

Gameplay is both fun and funny. You start out by flicking the undead around until they smash into zombie body parts (great for stress relief), progress to shooting them, and then you can enjoy dropping all kinds of heavy objects on their rotting zombie heads. By collecting the stars that float up when a zombie bites the dust, you can "buy" extra objects to enhance the gameplay further.

The game is full of fun extras such as "Easter mode," which will give some of your zombies rabbit ears, slow motion recording of zombie deaths, and the nice ability to easily grab in-game screenshots and e-mail them to friends.

Gore Rating:

Both the in-game and the title graphics are great (iPad owners should petition the developer for an HD treatment, in our opinion) and the music, composed by game score expert Chris Huelsbeck, is brilliant.

The zombie splats are really quite remarkable, thanks to the "sophisticated rag doll physics" that "produce unique and hysterical zombie deaths" as well as the "proprietary SplatterEngine™" that "renders adorable cartoon blood and gore in a convincing and entertaining fashion," according to the blurb. We concur!

4. Zombie Highway

"It's just you and your heavily armed passenger against a boatload of super-strong, leaping zombies."

As the developer says, "Cars. Guns. Zombies. What more could you want?" You're driving along a post-apocalyptic highway that's overrun by zombies intent on tipping over your vehicle, which would lead to your inevitable death. To get the zombies off your car, you either have to knock them over by driving close to stationery objects, or shoot the hell out of them from the back seat.

In the "classic" game mode, you control the car's direction with the accelerometer, leaving your fingers free to touch the screen to fire off your weapons. This combo works well; it's enough of a challenge to try and steer your car close to various objects to send the zombies flying, but not so much that you can't blow a few away at the same time.

As you progress through the game, you can collect better weapons (which you can switch in-game as you see fit or as ammo runs low) and see different types of zombies as the obstacles on the road become more of a challenge.

You can also opt to play with no weapons, in which case it's just down to your driving skills to get the zombies off your car, and then there's the "hardcore" mode to unlock too.

Gore Rating:

As primarily a driving game, it's not mega-detailed, but the zombies are what you might call anatomically correct, in the sense that they aren't cartoonish. We like the realistic sound effects and the lack of music actually works well with the desolate environment.

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